Arrest Homesh culprits

At a time when the legal system is commendably carrying out its duties and is setting a high standard of unbiased investigations - it is infuriating to see how the settlers at Homesh are bringing it to its knees.

While the police force is making an effort to investigate every detail pertaining to the inappropriate conduct of public figures, the settlers are openly holding the force in contempt. While the entire country is closely following the number of centimeters a certain minister's tongue entered a young woman's mouth, political perpetrators illegally entered closed off areas, blocked the IDF's movement, vandalized military property, and returned home unpunished.

On the one hand the legal system in Israel tries to fully enforce the law, and on the other hand it helplessly looks on as the settlers have been eating away at the law for the past thirty years.

The settlers' conduct is all too familiar. Recklessness and victimization - the syndrome of the robbed Cossack creates an efficient mix that forces the regime to fold time after time.

First we see threats and statements announcing they will march on Homesh, an area which is off limits. The army, in an attempt to prevent things from getting out of hand, engages in dialogue with the settlers which ultimately ends with the army's compromise.

Testing the IDF

After bending the IDF's arm the settlers embark on a series of provocations - infiltration in disregard of agreements with the IDF, closing off traffic routes and vandalizing military equipment. This is all carried out in an attempt to make the army slip up, to react with force that would in an instant turn the settlers into victims. They prefer this to happen along with a photo opportunity whereby a soldier is seen dragging a young boy or a female soldier shoving a young woman.

Their attempt to de-legitimize the army wasn't successful at Homesh, but the attempts to slander it haven't ceased. After breaking the law and ridiculing the army's announcements that it would not allow the settlers to reach Homesh, they embarked on a counter information attack against it.

After their provocations and the destruction they spread didn't bring about the desired results, the young perpetrators and their leaders complained that the army that safeguarded them against its will had denied them food and drink. The comparison the settlers made between themselves and Arafat was a desperate attempt at media manipulation through which they could depict themselves as victims.

It appears that the current attempt to march on Homesh in defiance of the law failed, but as the perpetrators themselves admitted, this will not be their last attempt. This is the first phase in which they are testing the response of the IDF and Israeli society. The settler community, which has in recent years become the biggest political perpetrator in the country, is dispatching young boys and girls to confront the IDF and the Israeli police force in a bid to test their level of determination.

While the legal system is making commendable efforts to enforce the law against politicians who have gone astray, it is bowing its head before serial criminals who have been breaking the law for dozens of years. Israeli society would do well to strengthen its law enforcement with the aim of halting a new generation of political criminals from rising up before our very eyes.